Shelter seeks to solve a growing problem

This dog is one of many at the Craven County Animal Shelter waiting for a chance to find a permanent and loving home.

Bill Hand/Sun Journal

By Bill Hand, Sun Journal staff

Published: Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 06:52 PM.

First of a three-day series about the Craven-Pamlico Animal Shelter. Tomorrow we will take a closer look at the animals that come into the shelter, their stories and their fate.

We are sitting in the Craven-Pamlico Animal Services Center playroom, where chairs and couches line two walls. A tower of PVC pipe and fabric stands against another wall, loaded down with cat toys. Dog and cat breed posters hang on one wall; so do posters hinting that nothing could be finer than a shelter pet from Carolina.

One wall features a huge glass window that doesn’t quite filter out the pathetic mewing of a kitten next door or the cacophony of dogs across the hall.

I am sitting with Trinity Smith, animal control supervisor. She smiles at our fellow occupant, a momma cat who wanders the room, weaving about the furniture and our legs, doing things that cats do.

Not far into our conversation I say the wrong thing — the thing that probably every animal control officer dreads to hear: “I love the animals, but I don’t think I could handle working here.”

First of a three-day series about the Craven-Pamlico Animal Shelter. Tomorrow we will take a closer look at the animals that come into the shelter, their stories and their fate.

We are sitting in the Craven-Pamlico Animal Services Center playroom, where chairs and couches line two walls. A tower of PVC pipe and fabric stands against another wall, loaded down with cat toys. Dog and cat breed posters hang on one wall; so do posters hinting that nothing could be finer than a shelter pet from Carolina.

One wall features a huge glass window that doesn’t quite filter out the pathetic mewing of a kitten next door or the cacophony of dogs across the hall.

I am sitting with Trinity Smith, animal control supervisor. She smiles at our fellow occupant, a momma cat who wanders the room, weaving about the furniture and our legs, doing things that cats do.

Not far into our conversation I say the wrong thing — the thing that probably every animal control officer dreads to hear: “I love the animals, but I don’t think I could handle working here.”

Trinity’s smile fades just a bit.

“People come in here all the time,” she says. “‘I could never do what you do. I love animals too much.’ That really makes us upset, because that’s why we do what we do.

“We are here because we all love animals. This is our passion.” She pauses, then utters the phrase again; makes it a question. “‘We love animals too much?’”

Despite the unavoidable mortality — “Putting your head in the sand does not help anybody,” she says — Smith sees her job as being a voice for abandoned or stray animals.

***

The animal shelter is a division of the Craven County Health Department, although it also is contracted to receive animals from Pamlico County and Cherry Point air station.

Five full-time employees work here, all of them women. It is a job that seems to be held mainly by women as a trend, employees here contend. Two part-timers are also employed — one of these is male. A host of volunteers and court-assigned community service workers also help keep the center afloat and the animals healthy.

The center is inspected at least once a year by the N.C. Department of Agriculture.

“Are records properly kept? Are we holding the animals the required amount of time?” Smith explains. “We can’t have exposed wood. Everything has to be nonporous.”

Anything that absorbs liquid becomes a health issue.

Of course anything nonporous does not absorb sound. Hence, the endless echo of dog’s barking.

Most of the amenities that help make the animals feel a little more at home, and many that directly affect their health, receive little or no funding from the county.

“We are able to take donations,” Smith said. “That money goes to a foundation and I can only use that for items that my regular budget doesn’t cover.”

Among those items is medicine, vaccines, veterinary care, toys, and beds.

Smith estimates that the shelter deals with some 5,000 animals a year.

“There are days when we have 60-plus animals come through the door,” she says. She has 24 eight-by-four foot dog runs and 30 cat cages, “So we have to juggle. We have had animals in every available spot in this building,” including the kitchen, garage, offices and grooming room.

And it isn’t just dogs and cats.

“We’ve had chickens, roosters, ducks, ferrets, chinchillas, turtles, iguanas. We had a monkey in here once. We had a pig,” Smith said.

When the non-dog, non-cat variety of animal comes, Smith said, “We try to get them to rescue groups… There’s a rescue group for everything.” Including, she noted, one for snakes and a New Bern-based society for ferrets.

***

A good relationship with rescue groups, Smith said, are a key ingredient to adoptions at the shelter. Colonial Capital Humane Society, Pals for Paws, the Pamlico Welfare and Fran’s Felines are among the local general rescue groups. Then there are statewide and nationwide rescue groups aimed at specific breeds such as pit bulls and weimaraners.

“We have a pretty good relationship with rescue groups,” she said.

***

Animals arrive at the shelter as either strays brought in by citizens or animal control officers, or as owner turn-ins. Their experience and fate depends on the animal and its situation.

“We get as much information as we can about where it was found, how long it was there, was it wearing a collar, any information like that,” Smith said of stray dogs that are brought in. State law requires these animals be held for 72 hours to give a chance for owners to claim them, although Craven County holds them four a full four days — three days for cats.

After this waiting period the animal becomes the property of the county.

“We can either put it up for adoption, transfer it to a rescue group, or we can put it to sleep,” Smith said.

Owners sometimes do show up and reclaim their animals she said — although, sometimes, owners are well aware their pets have turned up at the shelter and they simply leave them there.

Retrieving your pet from the shelter can cost you: New Bern and Havelock have leash laws and so you will have to pay a fine for that. Outside of these towns there are no leash laws, but you will still pay a fine if your pet does not have a collar and rabies tag. And owners can’t prove their pet has had its rabies vaccination, they will be charged for that as well.

If your pet turns up missing it is important to contact the shelter to see if it has been picked up. “The best thing to do, if you’re missing a pet, is to come down here, see what we have because you will know your animal better than we will,” Smith said. She also advised bringing a picture, vet record or other evidence of your pet because the shelter will want proof it’s really yours.

The goal is to find the pets homes, and every opportunity is sought to do so.

Smith said a lot of people who come to the shelter believe that animals are automatically put to sleep after a set period of time, but notes that this is not the case.

“We have a dog right now who’s been here for three months,” she adds. “There’s no limit of how long we can keep them here. As long as they stay happy and healthy and friendly, we keep them.”

Many animals are turned over to rescue groups, of which there are many.

Colonial Capital Humane Society, Pals for Paws, the Pamlico Welfare and Fran’s Felines are among the local general rescue groups. Then there are statewide and nationwide rescue groups aimed at specific breeds such as pit bulls and Weimaraners.

“We have a pretty good relationship with rescue groups,” she said. “We’ve all worked close together to get a lot of these animals out of here.”